


The Mourners

by orphan_account



Category: Poldark (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Wakes & Funerals, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 13:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4393760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth Chynoweth married a wealthy tradesman's son instead of Francis Poldark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mourners

It was a wet, cold day in November when Elizabeth Chynoweth was laid in the ground. It had rained that morning, and Ross had thought that the Heavens wept too; but now he wondered if it were not simply nature, acting independently of their grief.

Francis’s eyes were red-rimmed, and George Warleggan looked unsettled. They had each been in love with her, and all three of them had lost her five years ago when she married another.

Samuel Williamson had been a tradesman’s son with eighty thousand pounds, and he had made an offer that Jonathan Chynoweth could not turn down when he agreed to take Elizabeth’s name as his own in addition to exchanging their respectability for his wealth. He had paid off the family’s debts and invested in their land, and presently Cusgarne was one of the few properties in the neighbourhood making a profit.

He had given Elizabeth three children, and it was the last that had killed her. Elizabeth had lived long enough to name her daughter after her aunt before dying, and a week later, she was buried.

Neither Ursula nor her brothers Jonathan and Robert were seen at funeral, but Ross did not refine too much on that. Jonathan was a boy of four, Robert, two, and Ursula was six days old. It would be strange indeed if they had attended.

The attendees went over to express their condolences to Elizabeth’s husband and her parents, and Ross joined the sad procession. He shook quiet Mr Chynoweth’s hand, and he bowed over Mrs Chynoweth’s, finding true feeling in her hawkish face for the first time in the years he had known the family. He then came before the widower.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Ross said, and he shook Sam Chynoweth’s hand.

The man was paler and thinner than Ross remembered, a dull and listless imitation of the lively, almost boisterous, man who had teased Elizabeth for her inquisitiveness and swore to dance every dance with her when they were newly wed. Would his grief last, and would his children find their sole parent a cold, harsh man? Or would he recover his spirits, remarry, and remember Elizabeth only occasionally and with a spasm of sorrow?

“And I, yours. Elizabeth told me of your attachment before we married, and I do not think that any man who loved her could ever forget her. But he might move on,” the widower said. “Congratulations on the birth of your own daughter. She is but a few months older than Ursula, is she not? They might become friends when they are older.”

“I hope so.”

Sam nodded. “There is no great distance between Cusgarne and Nampara.”

Ross returned to his own home where he took his wife into his arms and held her close. Demelza and Elizabeth were nothing alike, earthenware and porcelain he had thought once, but she was alive and well. He did not want to learn the agony that pale, broken Sam Chynoweth knew.

 


End file.
